Yesterday, the PhRMA Foundation announced that it awarded grants to the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins University to develop a graduate-level comparative effectiveness research program, formally known as the PhRMA Foundation Center of Excellence for a Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) Educational Program.

World AIDS Day is celebrated on December 1 each year around the world. It has become one of the most recognized international health days and a key opportunity to raise awareness, commemorate those who have passed on, and celebrate victories such as improved therapies, increased access to treatment and prevention services. See how the disease and the world have changed over the last 30 years in this brief video.

Lately, I've gained a bit of weight. In fact, according to the official definitions of "overweight" and "obese," which factor weight and height to determine body mass index (or BMI), I'm teetering between the two categories. For a guy who's always been fairly active, and who sees himself as a decent middle-aged athlete, it's somewhat demoralizing.

I wanted to bring to your attention a recent piece by Sarika Bansal in Forbes. Ms. Bansal's piece is entitled "Top Five Ways Big Pharma Can Address Neglected Disease." As well as making some good observations about what is needed in the effort to address neglected diseases around the world, she also does a good job of acknowledging many things that biopharmaceutical research companies are already doing.

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, your friendly Catalyst writers took a few minutes to jot down what they're thankful for this year...with a specific mandate to not talk about innovation or advocacy! Here are our answers - we'd love to see what you're thankful for in the comments section.
Preet Bilinski: I'm thankful for the health and happiness of my family and friends... for having enough of everything I need... And especially thankful for a holiday focused on chowing down on good food.

Below is a guest post from Stien Vandierendonck, from National Alliance for Caregiving. Established in 1996, the Alliance is a non-profit coalition of national organizations focusing on issues of family caregiving. Alliance members include grassroots organizations, professional associations, service organizations, disease-specific organizations, a government agency, and corporations.

A few days ago, I wrote about Sabina and Mark Shalom, a caregiver and Alzheimer's patient featured in our video about this devastating disease. Sabina, like the millions of other caregivers, has great hopes that one day there will be a treatment available that can help delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's.